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i finally got to see chris costello and mihk vergara's adaptation last saturday at cinemanila 2013 at sm aura in taguig. it was a tiny audience--just 30 seats(!)--but what an experience it was. with its stellar cast, liberal use of SFX (the little bird was animated by arnold arre!), and awesome music (including an actual jholliebird jingle, variations of which were used as theme music throughout the film), ang maskot feels like either an overachieving short or a full-length feature crammed into twenty minutes. the filmmakers are planning on additional screenings early next year, and a DVD release some time after. i can't wait for the film to be shown to a wider audience. here's a comic i made about my viewing experience:

well, chris costello and mihk vergara's short film adaptation of "ang maskot" unfortunately did not make the cut for this year's cinemalaya festival.  the directors, however, have their sights set on november's cinema one film festival, so we will be crossing our fingers that the film will fare better there. direk chris says the film's chances are pretty good, so, positive thoughts, visualizing, asking the universe, etc. that said, after the cinamalaya rejection, and with reboots being all the rage these days in hollywood, i think i'd like to do a reboot of "ang maskot," you know, to make it more palatable to local film fest judging panels. NOTES FOR ANG MASKOT: SOCIAL RELEVANCE EDITION 1.) instead of a fastfood restaurant mascot, the protagonist is now a gay dancer working in a seedy furry fetish gay bar, in which all the lights are tinted red. 2.) the manager is mean to the protagonist because the latter rejects the former...

flipreads is handing out the free comic book day edition of "ang maskot," which is a slightly sanitized version of the first half of the story. a pretty good way to check if it's worth buying the whole comic. thanks to charles tan and co. for helping get this comic out there! photo by renejoshua while you're at flipreads, be sure to also download the FCBD editions of robert magnuson's if-richard-scarry-did-superheroes book kuting magiting #1 , and josel nicolas and ej galang's lovely meditation on commuting, taking the train . both are excellent reads, and both are FREE .

photo by danry ocampo just dropped off a few copies of ang maskot and school run at comic odyssey's new shop at the basement level of robinson's galleria. note that the school run are sold in full sets of issues 1-5 for P200 each.

the "ang maskot" short film just got featured on yahoo! philippines, including a curse-free version of the trailer (the middle fingers stayed in, though) and some chitchat with the directors: "I wanted to make this movie the second Mihk [Vergara] showed it to me,” says [Chris] Costello. “It was a great story that was full of great funny moments, and was full of heart. It was also already structured like a movie—it was so visually appealing." The 20-minute film required a grueling, nonetheless fun, three-day shoot. Vergara explains, “All our friends and family who helped out really came through for Chris and me.  It's less tiring if you're surrounded by people who really, really get you.” Costello also has a bigger vision for their short film. “My dream is to get a producer interested in further producing it as a full-length film.” UPDATE: front page, baby!

" [Macoy's] drawing style comes closer to the cartoonish/no nonsense side. Medyo simple pero why complicate things when you have some seriously funny and down to earth boy-meets-girl story to help you out. Don't try too hard to resist his works when you see them." thanks for the kind words , dennis!

aside from selling komiks again, the other thing that got me really excited about this komikon was the release of the first trailer for chris costello and mihk vergara's "ang maskot" short film:  both chris and mihk were there, and thankfully mihk brought his laptop because the AV guy's laptop couldn't read chris' USB stick for some reason. photo by bien del rosario i think we got a pretty good crowd reaction, considering that not many people know about my comic. i think having a super-recognizable cast really helped pull in the otherwise uninterested. the second time they rolled the trailer got a much better pop, so i suggested to our host, sherry baet-zamar, that we loop the trailer for the remainder of our allotted time. she just laughed; i think she thought i was kidding. after a quick Q&A, carljoe javier and bogart the explorer took the stage to unveil a trailer and crowdfunding pitch of their own. and then i went back to my ind...

mara andres managed production on the ang maskot short, and she recently blogged about the experience here . lots of behind-the-scenes stuff and photos! "...Day 2. Metrica St, Manila First shot of the day. It was obviously a pretty hot day. The stress of Day 1 made Day 2 seem so much more…relaxed, so to speak. Alessandra’s management initially said that she only had until 12 midnight but Alex was kind enough to stay until around 12:30 or 1 in the morning to finish her scenes. Alessandra de Rossi and Ketchup Eusebio acting amidst the presence of styros. Haha. We had a lot of exterior shots that afternoon. Thank goodness the skies were kind enough to give us sun. Crowd control was quite a hassle and because the houses in the neighborhood were so close to each other, it was kind of difficult to filter out unexpected noise. But hey, it wasn’t as bad the as the incidents that occurred during first day." i can attest to the fact that these gals n guys ...

i had the best, most amazing day of my life as a cartoonist yesterday: watching a bunch of wonderfully talented, extremely hardworking people turn a comic i drew into a movie. that is to say, yesterday was day one of shooting for "ang maskot," a short film being produced for competition in this year's cinemanila film festival. chris costello (of the much-missed sputnik comics) and mihk vergara are directing. i've been sworn to secrecy about many things, but i can tell you they've put together an ace production crew, a stellar cast, found some really great locations to match the scenes in the comic, and commissioned an actual jholeebird jingle that will make your ears bleed . i was graciously allowed to hang around the set, get in the way of the production staff, etc. and ogle the people while they were working. naturally my camera  chose that day to conk out, the pictures it took going from this: to this: to this. and that's jholeebi...

sweet mother of micron pens just look at this maskot drawing by carlo clemente . now say something about it, because i can't. i am speechless.

sez the author of girl trouble and dumot : Ang Maskot  was crisp and clean. A man uses his own frustrations to bring happiness to others, which eventually sets himself free from his own problems. Also: the parts without dialogue are quite magical. Operasyon  was my favorite. The creator makes the statement “mga hayop tayong lahat” very clear in my opinion: a fable to take to heart during these media-saturated and “I-was-left-with-no-other-choice” kinds of times. his full list of fave komikon 2011 reads is here . check it out!

...because clickthecity.com 's resident film critic phil dy wrote a glowing review of my all four of my comics, which was posted as a note on sputnik comics' facebook page . and so for the benefit of anyone not on facebook,  i am shamelessly reposting the whole thing here. delicadeza was never one of my strong points. REVIEW: Komiks ni Macoy Philbert Dy on Friday, May 20, 2011 at 11:42pm OPERASYON, ANG MASKOT, TAAL VOLCANO MONSTER, SCHOOL RUN Macoy is incredible. There’s just no getting around it. His ashcan comics are essential reading, each work exhibiting a profound understanding of the form mixed with a strikingly Filipino sensibility. His stuff is deceptively simple, the art laid out in clear black lines, his figures cartoony but economical. The stories aren’t long, but each of them is filled with little details that form a world much larger than one would expect. But it’s really the versatility that astounds the casua...

sputnik comics shop recently released its top 5 indie sales lists for all the months of 2010 but december, and i am happy to report that each of my comics made it to at least one of those lists. the overall champ was louie cordero's nardong tae #1, which topped the charts for four out of eleven months. if this and alamat ng panget didn't keep running out of stock there wouldn't be any other titles at the #1 spot at all. as it is, alamat and my school run each hit #1 thrice. luckily for me, the ranking was based on number of units sold rather than peso sales, because, well, my stuff is cheap. major props to chez santander and the rest of the sputnik gang for compiling and releasing these lists, on top of all the other ways they've supported indie comics through the years. mabuhay kayo! sputnik on facebook

rocket kapre 's paolo chikiamco sat down with budjette tan and kajo baldisimo to discuss their recent national book awards win , trese fandom, and what it would take for them to quit their dayjobs and make comics full-time: Do you remember when it was that you first realized that you had a hit on your hands? That this was going to go beyond the convention circuit? BUDJETTE:   I’m not sure of the exact tipping point of Trese. I was getting an inkling of it when I would spot the occasional review online. (Yes, yes, I Google “Trese” once in awhile.) It amazed me that people took the time to write reviews that read like someone’s thesis report. These were very detailed and passionate reviews about the stories. It was also great to get feedback from guys like Gerry Alanguilan and Marco Dimaano about the book early on. And then, when we released TRESE: MURDER ON BALETE DRIVE, me and Kajo were invited guests at the Mangaholix Con in SMX, where we sold 100+ copies. By that time, we k...

mark rosario of planetmarkus.com posted a review of ang maskot on flipgeeks.com : very witty, hysterical and unexpectedly heartwarming all at the same time. It’s really not surprising why this title has received (and continues to receive) so much positive feedback from both comic fans and creators alike. The story itself is well-crafted plus the artwork is just pure eye candy. *earclaps* full article

espresso comics magazine is a 40-page, black-and-white, weekly magazine that is given away for free to LRT passengers, ala PDI's libre! the first issue will be coming out on monday, june 21 and will be available at the following stations at around 4pm: Edsa – LRT 1 Cubao – LRT 2 Recto – LRT 2 more free copies will be given out the next day (tuesday) at the ermita and robinson's galleria branches of comic odyssey . the july 12 and july 19 issues will serialize ang maskot in two parts. we're currently working on toning down some of the obscenity for public consumption. :p what really excites me about espresso is that it's completely free. there's no reason for people not to read it and pass it on. the first print run will be 50,000 copies. if that number stays constant it means 100,000 people might get to read my comic. that is a mind-numbing number to me. and i'm getting paid, too! more than i could hope to earn in several years of indie conventions and consign...

metakritiko 's resident pop culture critic and all-around really smart guy adam david has been writing a series of articles on pinoy cartoonists, including manix abrera, josel nicolas and myself: Macoy’s is a world populated by people stuck in ruts of their own making, living less than exciting lives, either deeply unhappy or regretlessly resigned to their stations in life. The keys to their salvation are mundanely everywhere – birds, soiled clothing, a driverless bus – if only they’d pick up on it, if only they have the desire – the will, the ability – to change both themselves and their lives. And that is what’s important in Macoy’s stories, especially in Ang Maskot : the story stems from decisions the characters actively make, whether for good or for bad... they make their own decisions, they glean their own meanings. It is a thoroughly humanist agnostic worldview rendered as shapes on paper. in a word: whoooooaaaaa. full article here .

my comics are now available at waku-waku anime hobby shop , located at the fbr arcade on katipunan avenue, near ateneo gate three. maraming salamat sir joma! http://wakuwakuhobbies.multiply.com/